ASML begins India operations, plans to hire young engineering graduates

Semiconductor equipment maker ASML has started operations in India and plans to hire 20-30 young engineering graduates initially to meet its requirement, a senior official of the company said.

Speaking on the sidelines of SEMICON India 2026, ASML Executive Vice President and Head of Customer Support Lin Kiat Yap told PTI that the company's scaling-up plan depends on the success of Tata Electronics chip unit in India and the ambition of India to grow in the semiconductor space.

Asked about when his company is going to start India operations and scale it up, Yap said, "Right now", and added, "We are probably going to start off at 20-30 people. We will see how fast it scales. It really depends on the ambitions of India, and it really depends on the ambitions of Tata." ASML provides advance lithography technology which enables making circuits on silicon wafers. In a way, it paves the foundation of converting a silicon wafter into an active component.

 

The company has a monopoly in advanced lithography technology, and no advanced chip in the world can be made without its equipment.

Yap said a lot of ASML customers are scaling up facilities in their own country.

"I think it's good that Tata is taking the very first steps in seeding the ecosystem. I think it's also very important to continue to grow the ecosystem, to bring in a second player, to bring in a third player. We want to make Tata successful because I think when people see Tata being a success, I think people will start to spend a little bit more time, be a little bit more focused in India and see the potential opportunities," he said.

During the event, ASML Chief Strategic Sourcing and Procurement Officer Allan Wayne said Tata Electronics is the first customer in India to have a 300-millimetre semiconductor fab with the production capacity of 50,000 wafers per month.

"If we're going to be scaling this up, we need to be able to build many fabs here. This is why we are very confident in what we see here now with the policies coming from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his team for the ecosystem and, of course, the great talent that we see in India," he said.

Wayne said ASML enters a region not only to support customers but to leverage talent.

"As you go on into 2032, India's projection and India's ambition is to have between 15 per cent and 25 per cent of the wafer fab of India's local semiconductor demand. That means you're going to have to have several fabs by 2032," Wayne said.

The government has announced the Semicon 2.0 scheme with an incentive of around Rs 1.27 lakh crore or USD 13.5 billion to build the semiconductor ecosystem.

According to Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, investment proposals worth USD 12 billion are likely to come under the new scheme for chip production.

Wayne said that the ambition of the government to meet 35-50 per cent of India's semiconductor demand by 2035 locally implies that the country will need about a dozen chip manufacturing plants with huge capacity.

"Then at some point, we may very well be looking at manufacturing. I see there's a question mark there because there's no plans for that as it stands at present," Wayne said.

He said talent and innovation will be critical for the growth of chip manufacturing in the country.

"I think this (innovation) is something that I'm not concerned at all about for India, especially after what I have seen in the last few days and in the last few months starting to come to India. But I think it's important that this first 300-mm fab in Tata is able to test and qualify, have good quality and yield and hit on schedule so that there are no delays," Wayne said.

Tata Electronics semiconductor plant is scheduled to begin operations in 2028.

"Time to market and our ability to deliver on time, I think that's something that people are looking for. And you're going to start to see, I think, many more of our customers coming to India. That means we need to be able to, of course, have the talent to be able to support all of that. We are very happy to be here now," Wayne said.

Tata Electronics estimates to have around 450 vendors to support at the Dholera plant, and the company is building 363 vendor parks to house them.